Primpin’ ain’t easy. Time to cast some spells.
Mirror mirror in plastic and glass, make my mug a virtual mask.
Alright girls (and a few boys I know). L’oreal’s coming with a pretty poison apple for your apple device. The commercial conversation when it comes to beauty products is a favorite bedtime story of mine. It’s one as old as it is true: “If they have to advertise it, you don’t really need it. The End.”
But old gets tiresome to hear. So that’s why it’s nice that L’oreal’s evolving the subconscious convo and reaching its claws even deeper into the market by sending out electronic huntsmen to collect the hearts of the unconscious consumers – with a real-time virtual makeup application mirror.
Toddler being babysat by T.V.: “I want to be pretty so I’m wanted too! This also appeals to my desire for a pack identity. Of pretty people. The only kind that count!”
Lipstick fuhrer: “Good thing we’re here to tell you how to fulfill those needs! All you have to do is buy our product AND add our app to your spy-phone.”
Toddler: “But what if I don’t hav-”
Fine but… how effective can it really be?
They say they tested different lighting arrangements, an untold amount of ethnicities, and how the products dried on the skin… but I’ve got doubts. Did they test it in every kind of climate? On every kind of skin type? Even gingers? Is that question racist and can I ask it anyway if I tan badly? I mean, this sounds cool. It’s interactive, maps your expressions, and can show how the product hits all the contours on your un-done-up face. That’s great.
But in real-world application? I dunno about you, but the way I look in real life versus iphone light is totes different. So, it can’t predict that accurately. Also, foundation sets differently if I’m in Cali air versus Virginia humidity. Does the app account for atmosphere too? Or is this just going to be a 360 degree Warholian rendition of my mug moving in real time? Then there’s skin texture.
Until they make an app with hands to caress my face it can’t tell that either.
(Although with that technology, who needs makeup? Who’d leave their home? Ever?).
Actually L’oreal itself is a great example (of makeup you have to physically try – not, ya know, electronic wankers). Their visible lift foundation is magical mud. Uh-mazing and great for a drugstore buy. But it looks 100% different than that stuff they sell in the next row that looks like someone’s just shat out of their nose and into a bottle.
With limitations like these, what’s a company’s motives? They wouldn’t say what they spent on this venture. So maybe NYT says it best:
“The app is yet another manifestation of a race among businesses to be connected to the consumer on every device, a competition that has left cosmetic companies far back in the pack.”
Sell by way of cell phone waves. And a barrage of spam. And endless ads.
I can see it now. Ads popping up every time you want to use the app. New features that look free and trick you into buying them at the last minute. And you totally do because the rest of your pretty posse is – before screencapping their new look for Instagram. Which you double-tap (Facebook translation: “Like”). And then they like yours. And everyone feels valid again as human beings.
Because this is how we compliment eachother now.
Yeah, no. It sounds really cool and totally appeals to my vanity.
Who doesn’t want to share their Platonic ideal selfies online? I spent the years of two-thousand-and-myspace devoting an interactive profile to exactly that. And while neither the app or faux albums are real, at least Tom didn’t charge me anything – but a retrospective facepalm.
In the end, L’oreal’s great for my fake-face needs. I’ll keep buying their product when the one I bought last year runs out. But until I give it a go myself, this whole face shape/expression mapping app is cause for some expressions of my own. Namely raised eyebrows.
